The Global Slavery Index 2023

Spotlights 4

​Frontline Voices: Modern Slavery and Gender (Part 1)
Although modern slavery affects everyone, there is no escaping the fact that it is a gendered issue. Fundamentally, modern slavery is enabled by power imbalances. For women and girls, this imbalance is exacerbated by gender inequality and discrimination that is deeply engrained into the fabric of our lives. For these reasons, integrating a gender perspective into research, policy, and practice is essential to ensuring effective solutions to modern slavery and to achieving gender equity. Here, survivor leader and researcher Caroline Adhiambo reflects on the gendered aspects of modern slavery and why applying a lens that recognises the unique lived experiences of all genders is integral to tailoring effective solutions. 
 
The laws and social norms we live by, and the different expectations imposed on daughters compared to sons, have contributed to their being more women and girls living in modern slavery than there are men and boys. Crucially, when looking at what increases a person’s vulnerability to modern slavery — factors such as lack of access to education and health services, poverty, and working in the informal economy — more women are exposed to multiple risk factors than men. Exacerbating these factors are structural imbalances, ingrained into legislation in many instances, which stack the odds against females. Examples include laws impeding women’s rights to autonomy, freedom of movement, and access to employment. 
 
As the causes of modern slavery are interconnected, putting structures in place that foster gender equality and ensure equal access to resources is essential as it creates a platform for empowerment. Also essential are inclusive data and research that focus on the perspective of all genders. Data allows for the creation of gender-sensitive approaches and interventions when addressing the issues faced by survivors of modern slavery. 
 
Despite these gendered imbalances, it is vital to recognise and respond to the aspects of modern slavery that uniquely affect men. For example, societal expectations and gender roles in many parts of the world can make it difficult for men to speak up when they are exploited. 
 
Those who do are often exposed to stigmatization, which can act as both a barrier to reporting and accessing support services and can lead to conditions that create and maintain vulnerabilities. Accordingly, there is a need for safe avenues for men to report cases of exploitation. 
 
Championing inclusion and addressing gender inequality should not be done at the expense of either gender but should be aimed at empowering both. Recognising that both men and women often have different experiences of modern slavery, and therefore can require different responses, is necessary if equity is to be achieved. 
 
Creating spaces where the voices of all genders can be heard with equal representation is essential, including in research, as is raising awareness of the impact of intersectionality on lived experience. Putting the unique experience and expertise of survivors at the heart of solutions is critical to bringing these objectives together, which in turn will go a long way towards ensuring that the root causes that expose women, men, boys, and girls to modern slavery are addressed. 
 
Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.